


The Well at Brackenrig, 1965

by kayeblaise



Series: SVT Immortals AU [1]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, also mentions of drowning, but it was a long time ago, chapter 2 is chronologically earlier, i'm incapable of linear storytelling, not really a spoiler or anything but someone is a ghost if that bothers you, team as family style, they're all not human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-09-26 23:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9928589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kayeblaise/pseuds/kayeblaise
Summary: Mingyu lies when he says he has no idea what brought him to the well.





	1. At the well.

Mingyu moved forward another step. The wind kicked up at random intervals, pulling at his hair and his clothes like it wanted to drag him away before suddenly stopping altogether, leaving silence in its wake.

The well was crumbling and bleached white from centuries standing abandoned on a windy hilltop. It was boarded up and tall grasses grew along its edges and between the boards.

Mingyu tried to swallow the lump in his throat but it stuck there.

“What are you doing?”

He startled and jumped at the voice. Woozi was standing next to him.

“Nothing,” he answered shortly, as he tried to recover from his surprise. Woozi must have followed him from the house.

The smaller was scrutinizing the well with sharp eyes, eyelids lowered against the wind. “Wells are bad news, you know. You shouldn’t play near them.”

“I’m not playing.”

“I know.”

Mingyu looked down at Woozi and knew that he was being serious. Relaxing into his jacket, Mingyu sniffed and turned his attention back to the well.

“People used to leave offerings at wells thinking it would appease faeries,” Woozi continued like it was typical for him to speak this much. “It’s a liminal space. That’s why it feels so heavy. Places like bridges or the edge of a forest: places that seem to transition from one space to another. They’re right that fae like places like that but they’re wrong to think they accept offerings or bribes.”

The words were somewhat chilling. Woozi always referred to faeries as an “other” like they were in no way a part of him.

A few yards ahead the well seemed to warp as the sting of the cold air made Mingyu’s eyes water. He would never admit it but he was glad for the company, then.

“Why did you come here?” Woozi asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“A well never leaves a place. You can knock down the stones and fill it in and cover it with concrete and sand but eventually the ground shifts and caves in so that it can make itself known again. They aren’t places you should visit without reason.”

“They pushed him.”

Woozi did not sound sympathetic or sad when he looked across at the well and asked, “Someone you knew?”

Mingyu shook his head no.

“Something you saw, then.”

Woozi wasn’t asking. He knew how Mingyu was. “So,” he went on, “you’d recognize them if you saw them.”

Mingyu thought of the face he’d seen bobbing in the water. He couldn’t forget.

“Follow me for a second, will you?”

Mingyu did a double take. Woozi had gone from his side and was already a few feet ahead. He made quick strides to catch up, feeling uneasiness in the pit of his stomach as they got closer to the well.

He didn’t want to admit it, but he would have been happier if Woozi stuck a little bit closer by his side.

As they approached the well, it seemed the sun had come out. The stones were shimmering at the edges.

He blinked a few times. It wasn’t a shimmer of sunlight. The sky was overcast as always.

Someone was sitting at the edge of the well, one leg crossed over the other… except there wasn’t anyone there at all.

“Wooz—”

Before he could get the question out, the shimmer at the well took shape and stood. They seemed like a figure in an old photograph that had been improperly developed. The startled eyes stood out in the round face. But what made Mingyu stop in place was the hair clinging to their forehead, still wet.

Mingyu reached out and grabbed Woozi back, fixing his eyes on the shadowy figure like they might disappear if he blinked. “Woozi, what is that?”

“You of all people should know.”

But Mingyu had no idea what Woozi was talking about.

Then all at once the wide eyes staring back at them made him feel like his skin was crawling and his heart was being squeezed. This was a face he had seen before. This was the boy from the well.

The figure, only a few feet away, suddenly puffed up like they were trying to be intimidating but weren’t 100% committed to the idea yet. “What are you doing at my well?”

Neither Mingyu nor Woozi answered him.

The frightened look from before had left his face. “Of course. No one sees me. What would possibly be different now.” He raised his arms up and away from his sides, fluttering them, a spooky sound emitting from his mouth, “oooOohh!! Be gone, mortals!”

Woozi shot back lazily, “We can see you.”

A bit of that young look returned to the gray face: awe that was half fear and half hope. “You can?”

“Really he dragged me out here so blame him.”

Mingyu looked at Woozi like he’d suddenly grown three heads. “I did not drag you out here,” he hissed.

Woozi stared back at him with an extraordinarily bored expression. He then returned his attention to the ghost to finish introductions. “I’m a fae, he’s an awful witch, and we know you’re a ghost.”

“You can see me?” His voice sounded odd, like It was fighting through a fog to reach them.

Woozi sighed. “No, we’re making it up.”

The ghost had one hand creeping over to where his heart would be. He mumbled something faintly, but it didn’t quite break through the fog.

Mingyu looked to Woozi for guidance and received none.

Instead, the fae said lightly to the air, “Hoshi, this is more your thing than mine.”

In a moment the imp appeared, holding a toothbrush in his hand. Mingyu had tried very hard to train himself out of jumping when Hoshi appeared so suddenly but he hadn’t yet succeeded.

“Are we at the well?” Hoshi asked.

Woozi directed, “You see that?” pointing toward the wall of the well where the shadowy figure was sitting once more, “I’ve found you a ghost. Also, why are you brushing your teeth?” Hoshi didn’t eat. There was no reason for him to.

Mingyu’s eyes narrowed. “Is that my toothbrush?”

Hoshi grinned mischievously and he tucked the object behind his ear.

“What the hell were you going to do with my t—”

“I’m dead, and you guys are arguing over a toothbrush?”

The ghost sounded incredulous but also, soberingly, pained, like he had a hard time admitting it.

“Oh,” Hoshi responded sheepishly, “That's rude, right?”

The ghost did not answer.

“Hey,” Hoshi began again, growing startled by the wateriness of the ghost’s eyes. “Hey, we’re sorry. Don’t be sad. Look at me! I’m not even alive in the first place. Well, I mean I’ve never been a person. I mean, oh no—,” he looked to Mingyu and Woozi for help finding instead equally lost expressions on their faces.

In a heartbeat, Hoshi had perched himself on the edge of the well beside the ghost.

Encouraged by the presence of a sympathetic ear, the boy (though he certainly couldn’t have been much younger than Mingyu) eventually sniffed, “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“People cry when they’re sad,” Hoshi recited like he was reading a textbook, “Or when they’re so frustrated they can’t help it. Also sometimes when they cut onions or sometimes they’re not crying, Hoshi, they just have something in their eye.”

The ghost looked at him like he was some kind of alien and suddenly an uncertain smile flit across his face.

Hoshi smiled back broadly. “What’s your name?”

“Seungkwan.”

Hoshi stuck out his hand and Seungkwan hesitantly shook it, surprise lighting in his eyes when their hands connected.

“Nice to meet you, Seungkwan.”

Seungkwan, as he had called himself, looked up and across at Mingyu and Woozi, that expression of wonder still in his eyes.

“I’m dead, still, right?”

“It’s not a reversible condition.” Woozi sounded unsympathetic as ever.

“But you can see me?”

Woozi nodded.

“And I’m solid.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

“You’re solid enough for me,” Hoshi explained, “although I think I am more solid than you.” He frowned at Seungkwan curiously, “You look a bit wishy-washy.”

“But you can see me?” Seungkwan repeated, this time looking at Mingyu for confirmation.

Mingyu nodded stiffly, still feeling uncomfortable under those dark eyes. Seungkwan had no clue who he was yet he knew the thoughts that had been going through his mind as he died. It seemed so strangely intimate to have seen someone die—to know they were afraid and cold. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be comfortable looking him in the face. Especially the way water still seemed to cling to his hair.

“I’ve waited years and years for someone to see me,” the ghost exhaled like the words were too heavy to lift high into the air, “People would come by and I would yell and scream but they never saw me.”

Hoshi had a sympathetic pout on his face and started dabbing at the tears that had spilled from the ghost’s eyes. It was odd to see the silver tracks they left on his gray face. It was equally odd to think that Hoshi may have been the only one capable of wiping them away, seeing as he too was not flesh and bone. “Did you ever leave?” Hoshi asked.

Seungkwan looked disturbed by the suggestion. “No, I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

The ghost was growing agitated. “It’s not possible.”

Hoshi, not noticing the escalation, pressed again, “Have you tried?”

“I just can’t,” he exploded like the suggestion was too great and overwhelming to fathom: a violation of the air. The wind kicked up with a vengeance and Mingyu had to close his eyes against it.

When he opened them again there were only 3 of them on the hilltop. The wind faded to nothing.  Mingyu blinked. “Is he gone?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Woozi responded.

“Ghosts are like that,” Hoshi added with a sigh. He hopped off the well, looking around once, and then headed back in their direction like he was preparing to go.

“Wait, why are we leaving?”

“We can come back another day.” Woozi said.

“He’ll still be here,” Hoshi reassured, seeing Mingyu’s uncertain expression.

“But he was just here now,” Mingyu resisted. “He said no one had seen him in years.”

“He’s not even really here, Mingyu,” Woozi explained, “He’s dead. He’s an echo. When you can’t see him he isn’t here.”

“Where is he, then?”

Woozi and Hoshi exchanged a look whose meaning was so hidden in mystery that Mingyu couldn’t begin to understand it.

“Nowhere.” Hoshi said at last.

Without another word, Woozi and Hoshi started to move toward the direction of the house. Woozi patted his arm as he passed with unexpected understanding. Mingyu turned reluctantly to descend after then, but paused at the crest of the hill.

“We’ll be back,” he said to the empty air. The magnetic pull of the well made his stomach churn uncertainly so he turned quickly and hurried after the others.


	2. what brought him to the well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter is chronologically earlier than the first*

“Josh, are you okay?” S. Coups asked from his place on the couch across the room.

Joshua was tipped forward, hands away from his sides like he was afraid he was going to fall and was preparing to grab on to something. 

Mingyu reached out to take his arm as he stumbled a bit, careful to only touch his sleeve. “Woah.”  He barely managed to guide him back to the worn armchair before he collapsed. 

Alerted that something was definitely wrong, S. Coups got up from the couch and paced across the room to kneel in front of Joshua at the chair.

Joshua was blinking rapidly like the sun was in his eyes.  “Can you hear them?” Joshua’s voice was usually gentle and full but the whisper was airy.

Standing to the left of the chair, Mingyu looked around the room like he expected to see the source of the sounds only Joshua could hear.

S. Coups just sighed and touched his tongue to his dry lips, giving himself a moment to study Joshua’s distant eyes. There were days when Joshua seemed to forget. “No, bud,” he said quietly, “only you can.”

“Why are they. . .”

S. Coups put his hand on top of Joshua’s wrist and squeezed. “Hey.” He moved his face into Joshua’s line of sight. “Look at me.” 

When their eyes finally connected, Joshua stared through him.

“You’re fine,” he insisted.

Joshua's focus started to wander but S. Coups pulled lightly at his wrist until he looked back. 

“Whatever happens you’re okay,” he said as gently as he could.

Joshua’s nose wrinkled just slightly then his eyes drifted to a spot past the ceiling.  His mouth stayed slightly parted like he was listening.  The words he spoke then parroted frighteningly out of him as if he was unaware of them: “ _I’m going to die here_.”  This would have been unnerving enough, but Joshua answered his own voice with terrible calm, “Oh I see.  That’s sad.”

S. Coups shuddered despite himself and snuck a glance at Mingyu.  The younger had his arms crossed, his hands hidden in his armpits.  He seemed to have done it subconsciously, like he was terrified of picking up on whatever it was Joshua spoke of.  S. Coups could almost feel Mingyu’s alarm. He reached out and blindly patted the top of his shoe. “He’s fine,” he reassured.  “Everything’s fine.”

Joshua had gone very still.  If the episode was particularly bad he would soon stop repeating the words he heard around him. _“No one’s coming_. _”_

“Should I do something,” Mingyu asked uncertainly.

S. Coups shook his head and moved to sit on the arm of the chair. He pulled Joshua against his side. Although the other didn’t acknowledge that he was aware of him, he settled back, smaller and smaller pieces of someone else’s words still tripping out of his mouth and fading into nothing.

“. . .’s _cold_. . .”

S. Coups rubbed at his arm, though he knew it was just an echo of what the younger heard.

“Is there any way for us to find who he’s talking about?” Mingyu tried again.

“He could be hearing anything,” S. Coups answered sympathetically.  “We have no idea whether it’s recent or not. We don’t even know if what he hears is always real.”

Mingyu was now biting his fingernail, distress evident in his eyes.

S. Coups, trying to appease the other, said, “We can’t know—”

“We could know,” Mingyu said before he’d finished.

S. Coups gave the other space to continue.

“We could find out.” He admitted it nervously.  “I could find out.”

S. Coups realized now what the younger was offering—had been offering the whole time.

“No, Gyu, that’s alright.”

“But if we could do something. . .if someone’s in trouble and we could help. . .”

“Let him do it.” Jeonghan was leaning against the doorway like he had been standing there for a while.

S. Coups tried to push his discomfort at the idea in Jeonghan’s direction. Mingyu avoided direct contact with any of them, for their privacy and for his own sake, but Joshua especially he had avoided. None of them, not even Joshua knew where that might lead.    

“He’s been practicing with Wonwoo.  He’s gotten good at it,” Jeonghan said supportively, nodding at Mingyu as he spoke.

“But that’s different, isn’t it?”  S. Coups couldn’t quite frame why it was different.  He just knew that Mingyu getting little glimpses into someone’s past was not the same as what he was offering now.

“You’re right,” Jeonghan agreed, “It’ll be complicated.  You’re going to have to try to think past Joshua to the person he’s hearing.  Do you think you can try that?”  He directed the second half of his comments to Mingyu who nodded.

S. Coups squirmed, still uncertain about the whole idea. It seemed wrong to him, too, that Joshua was too withdrawn to give his own input on the matter. He squeezed Joshua’s shoulder, half hoping he would come out of it.  Sometimes an episode only lasted a short while.

Jeonghan noticed and shook his head just slightly, letting him know that today would not be one of those easy days where he found his way back out of the fog.

Resigned to the fact that this was going to happen regardless of what he thought, S. Coups watched Jeonghan direct Mingyu into rearranging the furniture.  When they finally settled down close by, S. Coups could see the nerves that had built up in Mingyu and wondered how Jeonghan hadn’t noticed, or why he thought it was important enough to try something like this anyway.

“I’ll guide you through it,” Jeonghan began, giving Mingyu his gesture of approval to start from where he sat beside him.

Mingyu started to reach out his hand and hesitated.  “Do I try it the remote way or do I—”

Jeonghan stared at him, and S. Coups couldn’t be sure if it was the look alone that gave him the answer or if Jeonghan said something private to him, but Mingyu answered, “Right.”

He took a breath and reached out to take hold of Joshua’s wrist. 

As soon as he made contact he tensed up.  His expression remained unblinking and far away.  Yet in the silence they could hear his breath rattle dangerously in his throat.

“Hey,” S. Coups began, his voice touched with concern.  He reached around Joshua to shake Mingyu’s arm. 

Jeonghan, alerted by the same signs was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, all intensity focused in on the taller.  “Don’t go down the wrong path,” he said with calm authority.  “Don’t get lost.”

“Should we stop him?” S. Coups ventured.

“Not yet,” Jeonghan said back.  Then to Mingyu he continued, “Where are you?”

Mingyu’s mouth barely moved as he answered, “The hill.  Our hill.”

S. Coups waited, his chin resting on top of Joshua’s head, his arms wrapped around him like he was trying to keep him from falling away. He just wanted them both close and safe from whatever they found in the void.

Jeonghan nodded, satisfied. “What do you see?”

“It’s cold.”

“Mingyu, stay focused,” Jeonghan said, ignoring S. Coups trying to share his uncertainty and his questioning.  “What do you see?”

“The well.”  Mingyu’s teeth were chattering.  “It’s cold.”

S. Coups couldn’t stop himself this time. “Jeonghan, maybe we should—”

“Give him a chance,” Jeonghan answered back understandingly.  “Are you alone?”

“They left me.”

“Who did?”

“They’re not coming back.”

There was a long pause.

Tears slipped silently from Mingyu’s unblinking eyes.  “I don’t want to die here.”

“Min—”

“I don’t want to die.”  

Just as S. Coups was getting ready to stand and intervene, Jeonghan pulled Mingyu’s hand off of Joshua’s wrist.

The witch jammed his eyes shut, shuddering once before he opened them again.

“Mingyu?”

Jeonghan reached out to put a hand to Mingyu’s face but the younger pulled back, swiping quickly under his eyes.

“Um, they pushed him,” he clarified, trying to keep his voice steady.

Jeonghan was pulling Mingyu’s sleeves down so they covered his hands.  When he finished, he ran his thumbs over the spot where the cuff covered his knuckles.  “That well has been covered for a long time.  I’m assuming we’re too late to help whoever it was?”

Mingyu nodded.

S. Coups let a long exhale out into the air. What was the point of Joshua hearing voices from the dead? And what was the point of letting Mingyu see any of it?

For a moment the only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall.

Mingyu continued quietly, “They left him to drown.”

“I’m sorry, Mingyu.”

The taller shrugged.  “I’m gonna go.”

Jeonghan looked up as Mingyu stood but didn’t try to stop him.

“Are you going to be alright?” S. Coups asked.

“People die,” Mingyu said hollowly.

When the taller had disappeared around the corner, Jeonghan turned to S. Coups and responded to the distress painted on his features. “He needed to know. We’ll send Hoshi to check on him later.”

“I don’t know if he’ll want to talk to him,” S. Coups sighed, “Hoshi doesn’t understand death.”

“We could send Wonwoo but he’d probably be just as mad at me as you are,” Jeonghan said knowingly.  He then came over and squeezed into the space next to Joshua on the armchair.  “You in there Joshua,” the immortal wondered softly, wrapping an arm around his back.

S. Coups tried to even out his emotions before he asked, “Why did you let him do that?”

Jeonghan was still looking at Joshua as he answered S. Coups honestly, “He was going to be haunted by the thought of it either way.  At least now he knows he couldn’t have helped.”

S. Coups felt a bit guilty at the fairness of the answer.  He commented off-handedly, “He’s getting better at it,” hoping to shift the tone of the conversation.

“When he does it remotely,” Jeonghan agreed, “but what he sees is random that way.  He still can’t handle direct contact.  I was blocking a lot for him just now.  Even then he was overwhelmed.”

“How long do you think it will be until that gets better?”

“Never, if Wonwoo keeps being afraid to push him.”

There was an uncomfortable pause as the conversation teetered on the edge of dangerous territory.

S. Coups, uncertain about saying anything in front of Joshua even in his current state, gently covered the other’s ears and said quietly, “You can understand his hesitation after what happened in London.”

 _That’s exactly why he needs stronger mental blocks in place._ Jeonghan’s voice was firm in the back of his mind.

S. Coups dropped his hands, thinking back at Jeonghan,  _Doesn't_ _he deserve to know?_

 _Would you want to know if it was you?”_ Jeonghan asked.

And S. Coups didn’t have an answer.  Jeonghan, unfortunately, didn’t seem to have one either.

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my really broad, completely under-developed au that has no linear story-line and no real end point. Just moments of half told stories. Feel free to explore/request more through kayeblaise.tumblr.com/immortalstags (I feed on your energy, haha).


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